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When I told everyone the story of my alien abduction and almost certain anal probing, I was definitely going to say that I passed out from the booze. Not that I saw an alien for the first time in my life, and promptly fainted.
CHAPTER2
KAELUM
The Zathki were testing our defenses, their small, sleek ships capable of phasing in and out of sight, slipping past our vessels in orbit to search out weak points to attack Thorzan’s surface. They needed the ample resources of our planet—our clean flowing water, the food our planet supplied plentifully when their own world was a barren icy wasteland. They could mine, drill down beneath the tunnels they slunk through, but why bother when Thorzan was there, tamed by our warriors, so lush and fruitful? Easier to attack and steal than squeeze the pitiful gifts from a planet that all but rejected them.
We were at war with the Zathki worms. Every Thorzi knew it. All we awaited was the first spilling of blood, but sure as the pulse of burning starlight at the seat of our warriors’ power, it was coming.
“They sense our weakness,” Vipha announced to the court, his hand dragging through the air to indicate the whole round receiving room, but his brilliant blue eyes fixed on me behind my father’s throne.
I was that weakness made manifest. At once, I promised Thorzan hope, and degradation. I was not a true-born warrior. If I led the Thorzi, it would be away from the ideals they had held for millennia. I did not share their tough blue skins, their full and gleaming blue eyes.
Like my mother, I was pink. My irises were brown. I stood a head shorter than any true-born Thorzi.
My tongue, thick and dry, scratched the roof of my mouth. I swallowed down bitterness, bile that rolled in my stomach and had my fists clenched by my sides.
My father’s own broad blue fist struck his seat, carved of wood from Thorzan’s forests and polished to a dark shine. Vipha started, his attention fixed back on our king. That gave me a moment to master myself.
“There is no weakness on Thorzan,” my father said. His voice was low, deep, and booming. He was an enormous Thorzi warrior, his throne inherited from a long line of fighters who could defend not only themselves, but entire armies with the assistance of mages. Our ancestors beat back our enemies and the dangers of the jungles to establish ourselves here, on Thorzan, when the first planet of our people fell to the push of progress in a wave of heat and air that singed our throats and killed millions.
“The Zathki will find it is a mistake to challenge us here, in our home. And when we take the fight to them, we will bury them in their lightless tunnels like the rats that they are.” King Xyren’s voice remained strong, his molten blue eyes scanning his people for any show of doubt or fear from the warriors that followed him.
He was met with only firm jaws and stiff nods. Doubt was not in Thorzi marrow.
Or if it was, we burned it out. To do less was to die.
His patience gone, my father dismissed his court with a sharp wave of his hand. His glare followed Vipha as he led his contingent of ancient scientists out first.
They would cause problems, those traditionalists who did not see the value the humans had brought us. We would be lost without them, but they were soft, incapable, and weak. Without Thorzi to protect them, no human would survive the jungles held back by the cliff face and the palace walls.
And to Vipha and those who held his views, I was every bit as soft and weak as a human.
My mother drifted to my side and touched my wrist, her warm brown eyes swimming with sadness in her round face. All I had left to give her was a short shake of the head. There was nothing to say, no assurance I had left to give her—because the truth of it was, my heart beat with human blood as much as the blood of Thorzan. It was a part of me, and one I would not deny, but I had spent much of my life stuffing it down, suffocating weakness in the hope that one day, my heart would feel whole and my people would look upon me not with doubt, but with pride.
Instead, the weakness had bloomed, and my yearning for Earth was sharp like claws in my chest. I could not tell her how I longed to see her home, and I would not tell her that it was her blood and her sacrifice that made me afraid—afraid that I was every bit as conflicted and useless as Vipha believed me to be.
I stepped down from the dais and stalked out of the throne room, into the royal wing of the palace. Luminescent vines twined up the columns, lighting the walkway even when the twin stars had set. One side of the colonnade was open to the royal gardens, the other carved of stone, set with doors to my family’s private quarters.
If I would be king, I had to prove my worthiness to my people. That meant escaping the weight of my father’s doubt, which seethed as surely as Vipha’s. It had taken years of begging for him to allow me to fight, to go out into the wilds and prove myself a warrior. To give me a ship of my own to aid in the defense of our planet. Dispelling doubt meant defending our people and proving I would protect what was ours.
As ever, a set of quick, confident steps echoed in the hallway behind me. No more than a breath later, Jax, my protector, was at my side.
“Why do you look so lost, Kaelum?” he asked.
I glanced his way. His eyes were as luminescent a blue as any true-born Thorzi’s, but his irises were smaller, surrounded by the white he shared with his human father, Murphy. The shape and brightness were echoed in my own gaze, though I had my mother’s brown—another mark that set me apart from the Thorzi, even when my irises shone more than a human’s ever would.
My steps quickened to escape my jovial shadow. “I am not lost.”
“Good. Your path is clear. Your might is equal to the danger before you. And here you are, dragging your feet like a babe who’s been smacked out of the sweet jar.”
“Only your father keeps a sweet jar.” Murphy had a tongue that preferred sweetness and fruit to the Thorzi staples of meat and more meat.
Jax scoffed. “I know your mother favors honeyed treats. All humans do. You will not fool me with all this prickly, bitter brooding.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you know ofbrooding?”
His responding laugh was loud, echoing off the walls and bouncing out into the warm night air, through archways that led to gardens with flowers as vibrant as jewels.
